verge quotes

You haveto take chances for peace, just as you must take chances in war† The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessaryart. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.

-John Foster Dulles
  Quoted in'How Dulles  Averted War', in Life magazine, 16  Jan. His biographer Peter Grose in Gentleman Spy (1994) claims Dulles'never actually used the word 'brinkmanship', but the label stuck to him as the legacy of a diplomatic strategy that was reckless for the nuclear age'.